Baesole, who they call Beagle, or sometimes Bagle or Basil, burst into the town hall meeting in proper Beagle fashion--loud, late, and reeking of mead.

"I says!" he announced, holding a tattered book aloft in one hand and his sword at his side with the other, "I says you don't just bring in a nemcrodancer without... like without..."

Clearly Beagle had forgotten his point half-way through his sentence, so another helpful tonwsperson gave him some assistance. "Without first locking up the Beagle?"

"Yes!" Beagle shouted in agreement, though without being entirely sure to what he had agreed.

Mayor Pindletop slammed his gavel down on his large wooden desk and tried to look as stately as possible, wearing his feathered top hat and fraying suit, with an over-sized writing quill in one hand. "Mister Baesole!" he declared, "you will have a seat and we will have order at this meeting!"

Beagle complied, though his act was less of an acquiescence to the Mayor's demands than it was to the demands of his buzzing headache.

The necromancer stood and held his hands out in front of him to address the crowd. He was exceptionally thin, clad in humble brown and gray robes, with an iron-shod wooden staff by his side on the desk. "Now, kind people," he said, or perhaps he hissed, for it sounded as if his voice was strained through a long tube before it left his mouth. He paused after addressing the crowd to ensure he had their attention, and he certainly did. "The vengeance retention, as it is called, how many of you know what this is?" His voice was quiet, as if deliberately so, and everyone in attendance had to be silent and strain their ears to hear him.

One bright young lad from the outlying farms raised his hand and stood when the necromancer pointed meaningfully at him. "Yessir mister, yessir it's when a horse ya done shoed yesterday kicks at yas today."

The necromancer looked around the room to see if any would correct the young boy's false claims. Everyone else looked at one another, and at the boy, and at the necromancer, and willfully away from the stinking Beagle who passed out shortly after sitting down, but nobody had anything else to offer. "A valiant try," the necromancer said to the boy, who sat back down to the jeers and playful arm-punches of his friends. "But, no, the vengeance retention is the natural, reflexive memory retention in the human muscles, that causes a fresh corpse to seek out his--or her," he added, with a half-bow to the most attractive group of young women in the audience--all things being relative, "killer."

He went on to explain the process further, and detail how a skilled necromancer, such as, he humbly submitted, himself, may raise a corpse to seek out its killer, thereby assisting in the guard's investigation.

When Beagle finally awoke, he cursed his lack of vigilance. "Of all the unholy, dirt-licking, sod-sipping, vile, corpse-humping..." his rant went on for awhile before he finally arrived at, "the damn fool necromancer blotted out the sun, and killed the town! Have at thee, fiend!" he shouted, waving his sword about carelessly in the air. "You'll not take Baesole the Paladin unaware as you have these fine townsfolk!" His blind assault on his hidden foe continued like this for a few more minutes, until he inadvertently bumped into the large double doors and stumbled outside the meeting hall into the late afternoon sun.

"'Lo Beagle," Beagle's favorite tavern wench said to him, "we put up the tapestries so you could sleep after the meeting. Seemed you needed it, hon. You got any treasure left from your raid on the orc camp, dear? You want a romp upstairs?"

Beagle did want a romp upstairs, but he had already made a promise to himself that he could not break. Beagle the Paladin would hunt down the villainous necromancer. First he just needed to sit down on the dirt road for awhile to clear his head.

He sat, and occasionally laid, on the road, until late evening when he was rudely interrupted by a low, gutteral sound. He looked up to see his adventuring companion, Lurug the Barbarian, standing over him with drool coming out of the hole in his throat that now served as his mouth. "Yeah, I know, Lurug," Beagle said, "that assassin done a number on you."

Lurug's attack caught Beagle by surprise. "Lurug!" Beagle scolded, "just because you're dead don't mean you get to hit me, now!"

The guard arrived, and half the townsfolk with them, led by the necromancer who had what Beagle surmised must pass for a smile among necromancers stretching from ear to ear on his face. "Bagle's the killer!" one shouted. "Get the Basil!" another politely suggested.

Beagle ran, and ran and ran, until finally they cornered him in an alley. The necromancer had tricked him! He'd been set up! By framing Beagle the Paladin, the necromancer could be rid of his only opposition in the town and then slaughter and subsequently raise the entire population. "Forgive me, Krold," he began his prayer to his god Krold, the Ever-Knight. "And forgive them, for they have been bamboozled by this dead-loving charlatan." Beagle the Paladin drew his sword and set about the night's bloody work.